Adhir strike to protest FIR

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Behrampore, Feb. 10: The Murshidabad Congress has called a 12-hour strike on Wednesday to protest Trinamul’s alleged efforts to malign the party by lodging “false complaints” in connection with the vandalism outside the district magistrate’s bungalow.

The announcement comes in the wake of a suo motu case Behrampore police have started against five persons after the Thursday ruckus.

Although police sources had said junior minister Adhir Chowdhury, who had told Congress workers to gherao the district magistrate’s bungalow, was named in the FIR, Murshidabad police chief Humayun Kabir had refused to divulge the names.

Chowdhury today told journalists that despite an appointment, district magistrate Rajeev Kumar did not meet his party workers who had gone to submit a written request. He said the Congress would file a defamation case.

“No Congress worker had entered the DM’s bungalow or the circuit house. I pacified the party workers like a responsible minister. The entire episode is a conspiracy against me and the Congress that Trinamul has hatched to malign the party before the (February 23) bypoll,” he said.

On Thursday, Congress workers broke furniture, threw flower pots and ransacked a government vehicle outside the DM bungalow and circuit house in Behrampore after Rajeev Kumar was not available to accept the written request.

Chowdhury today said he would lead a delegation to governor M. K. Narayanan and submit a memorandum apprising him of the incident.

Reacting to Chowdhury’s comments, Trinamul leader Dilip Singha Roy said: “The result of Rejinagar bypoll will prove that Adhir Chowdhury has been harping on illusions. He has lost his support base and the unruly behaviour of his party workers proves that he has lost control over them. To make the bandh a success, he will probably take the help of the CPM.”